SPEECHLESS*

When a word
is pronounced

we speak it,
we breathe it,

we sound
all its syllables out

in order to
activate its meaning,

its very spirit. 
When the hospital

called to tell me
that my mother

had breathed
her last breath

and used pronounced
to say she had passed

the paradox of the word's meanings
left me speechless.

*In memory of Patricia Marilyn Martin